---Daily Planet---
"This is Cat Grant reporting for the Daily Planet. In a matter of hours, cities across the United States have descended into brutal warzones, orchestrated by the nefarious Metropolis organization, InterGang. These coordinated attacks not only involved InterGang but also enlisted the support of each respective city's notorious villains. This strategic move has successfully divided the resources of both the Justice League and the Titans, enabling InterGang to amass a horrifying body count that has now reached a staggering twenty thousand.
The brutality of these attacks spared no one, with government buildings, news agencies, and prominent corporate structures like LexCorp and the Wayne Foundation bearing the brunt of the violence. Every unfortunate soul on the streets faced the terror unleashed by these criminals.
In a particularly chilling incident in Metropolis, a police station became the target, resulting in the tragic loss of every life within, except for the son of my esteemed colleagues, Jon Kent—child of Clark Kent and Lois Lane. Eyewitness accounts and reports from kidnapped journalists near Lois Lane indicate that she pleaded desperately with the newly-inducted Justice League member, Doomguy, to rescue her son.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Justice League is engaged in humanitarian efforts, rescuing those trapped in rubble and providing medical attention to the injured. The gravity of the situation has prompted the President to declare a national emergency, with the National Guard deploying alongside the Justice League. The official statement from the President towards his generals underscores the urgency of the response: 'I want every person to ever speak, look, or be in the same room with any of these bastards dead.'
As the nation grapples with unprecedented chaos and the heroes strive to restore order, the toll of InterGang's ruthless onslaught continues to rise. This is your host, Cat Grant, reporting on these dire developments and signing off."
***
---unkown location---
Jon awakens to a searing pain, as if a sledgehammer had collided with his skull. Bruised, battered, and adorned with cuts, he discovers his body restrained in an unyielding grip, his clothing shredded, and kryptonite-infused cuffs rendering his powers impotent. The ominous reality dawns upon him.
In the cramped, shadowy confines of the van, armed personnel adorned with the sinister insignia of InterGang surround him. The promise of safety from Doomguy, the assurance that the police would shield him – shattered. A futile attempt to surge forward results in a brutal fall, his face meeting the unforgiving floor, blood streaming from his nose.
Mocking laughter echoes as an InterGang member sadistically stomps on Jon's back, twisting his boot to inflict agonizing friction burns. "Aw, look, kid thought his powers were going to activate," they taunt, reveling in the vulnerability of the son of a mighty hero.
"Enough! Deliver him to our contact in Santa Prisca!" the leader commands, momentarily halting the torment to present an image of composure. Jon, gasping for air, is lifted back onto his seat, hastily tidied to conceal the brutality from their awaiting contact.
"Bane's Island?" Jon queries, summoning all the strength he can muster. Fear courses through his veins, paralyzing him as the grim reality of Santa Prisca unfolds. The name resonates with tales of Bane's upbringing in the island's wretched prison, a place condemned even before his first cries of life.
Desperation overtakes Jon as tears stream down his battered face. His body shakes from an adrenaline rush, and a plea escapes his quivering lips, "What do you want from me?" The cold silence that follows amplifies the terror, leaving Jon clinging to a sliver of hope, futile as it may be.
In the midst of torment, Jon's thoughts are consumed by a single, desperate desire – to return home. The kryptonite-infused cuffs, a cruel restraint, deny him the means to break free. Yet, amidst the despair, he clings to the diminishing hope that his father and Doomguy will find him before the impending darkness consumes him entirely.
***
---Watchtower---
Superman punches a wall, his fist going right through it as he lets out a bit of anger, he knows he can't let out his anger without risking the complete destruction of earth but all he wants is to know where his ten year old son is.
Doomguy was sitting with his helmet off as he looked down in guilt, he promised that he'd be safe but now that Jon has been kidnapped, what does that make of him?
The two invincible beings had to stand outside of a room to let Batman interrogated a captured intergang officer, trying to find a starting point to find Jon before the worst has to come.
"Clark, I-" Doomguy tried to speak with Superman, only for him to fly at Doomguy, pushing him into a wall as his eyes glowed red as he prepared to fire his heat vision right into Doomguy's face.
Just earlier that day, it seemed that Superman was not so angry at him for the disappearance of him, perhaps the anger hadn't settled in that moment but it did now.
Doomguy remained calm, not trying to escalate things further but instead to let Superman release his anger so that he would listen to reason.
"You promised that Jon would be safe with you, I let you take him with you to the theaters and now they kidnapped him" Superman grits his teeth as he continues to press Doomguy further into the wall.
But before their tensions could escalate further, Batman exits the interrogation room to see the two strongest Justice League members, ready to duke it out ont he watchtower.
"That's enough from both of you, I have some information" Batman shouts at his comrades, forcing Superman lets go of Doomguy, breathing in and out to let go of his anger to listen to Batman.
"Jon's en route to Santa Prisca within U.S. borders towards the West coast, concealed in an unmarked, unprotected van. Our mission: vigilant watch for any vans entering ports and boarding ships bound for Santa Prisca. I'll dig into cargo ship registrations, specifically those destined for the infamous island." Batman informs them.
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"How are you sure that they'll put him on a cargo ship and not an airplane?" Doomguy asks.
"Due to a strictly enforced no-fly zone over the island, patrolled by fighter jets," Batman said, handing over a tablet with all ships en route for Santa Prisca
.
Doomguy was impressed in how quick it was for Batman to snatch the registration, perhaps there was a reason why Gotham criminal underworld fears him so much. He sighs as he remembers why they are doing this, to find Jon before he is on a gore website, may god forbid what Superman do if that happened.
"Can't we ask the Flash to go through every single van that's heading towards US ports?" Barnes asks, not understanding why they have to wait until the last moment to save Jon.
"The Flash is tied up at the moment, dealing with the Reverse Flash and rooting out InterGang sleeper cells. We're clueless about the van's make or color, so our odds are riding on uncertainty, we just need to pay attention to any vans entering West Coast ports" Batman tells the two the plan to find Jon but the last part didn't make sense to superman or Doomguy.
"I don't get it, why would they go to ports that are far away from Santa Prisca or why didn't superman use his super hearing to locate him" Doomguy asks, wondering why they haven't done the obvious already.
"In his attempt to locate his son, he used his superhearing, only to be met with deafening silence. A clever ploy, I must admit – the van's interior lined with lead, one of Superman weaknesses. As for your initial inquiry, the notion of a van clandestinely infiltrating a cargo ship within a bustling port, especially those along the Floridian coastline, is preposterously conspicuous" Batman explains, he understands that intergang are not the usual street crooks and uses ploys out of special forces playbooks to fool whoever is attempting to track them.
"So we'll have to wait for a random van to show up in Los Angeles or San Fransisco?" Superman gets up in frustration, all he wants is his son and they have to play the waiting game.
"Clark, don't worry, whoever they're bringing Jon to is impatient but still cautious because InterGang will have to use the Panama Canal." Batman assures that they'll get Jon back before anything has been done to him.
"Okay, now that we know some of the next moves of InterGang, what is ours?" Doomguy asks.
"Us three, along with Nightwing, Robin, and Raven will go to coastal cities on the West coast as civilians, patrolling near the ports, and if any vans enter, you must wait until whoever is inside them, exits," Batman tells them their next move as he walks into a hangar, inside the watchtower, revealing their cars that already had their belongings in them.
"We will use boomtubes and exit on the interstate highway in New Mexico to avoid being spotted" Batman informs them.
Doomguy was taking Clark's Challenger Hellcat, Batman had Wayne's Lamborghini, and Clark was going with his Ford F-150.
"Barnes, you're going with Raven, I am going with my son, and Clark is going with Nightwing," Batman tells them as he removes his bat-suit, putting on casual wear as the rest do the same.
Barnes gets into his car and starts it up, with Raven sitting next to him in the passenger seat "Why did you want to come with me to find Jon?" Barnes asks as he revs the car, warming its engine up.
"I can sense souls but not in a very large radius, that and I want to speak with you" Raven says, given that her magic is known to be extremely potent.
A boom tube opens with Bruce going in first with his lambo, followed by Barnes, and finally Clark as they exit onto the interstate highway in New Mexico.
Barnes's phone starts ringing and he sees a group call being started by Bruce Wayne so he clicks on the pickup button.
"Listen up, Barnes and Raven will patrol the Los Angeles port, me and Damian will patrol San Fransisco, and finally, Clark and Dick will patrol the San Diego port" Bruce Wayne starts his briefing on the mission.
"What do we do if they don't go to those ports?" Barnes asks.
"Then our next option is to hide out in Panama and raid every single ship that is bound for Santa Prisca" Bruce clarifies as he moves on with the briefing "Inside the glove compartment of your cars should be thousands of dollars in cash, use that money to stay up in a hotel as you will be taking shifts in patrolling the ports" Bruce finishes up as he cuts the call.
Barnes pushes on the gas, speeding up ahead of the rest of the team, trying to shorten the trip to Los Angeles so he could get a head start.
"Don't drive so fast, I don't want to use all of the cash on fines" Raven said, trying to pull herself back up from the G forces,
"Don't worry, I can see speeding cameras and roadside cops, long before they see me" Barnes said with complete focus on the road.
Just as Barnes was enjoying how far he got ahead, Bruce raced past in his Lamborghini, showing off the difference between American muscle and Italian hypercars with Clark being left behind, since he was in a full-sized pickup.
"At this rate, we'll be in L. A in seven hours... as long as we have fuel" Barnes said as he lets go of the gas a bit, attempting to save some more fuel but was still going beyond the speed limit.
"Barnes, I want to ask something... do you know the meaning behind this crystal on my forehead?" Raven asks him, perhaps her staring at the mark of the beast did mean something.
"No, do you know the meaning behind the symbol on my helmet?" Barnes asks her a similar question, seeing if she knows about how his father became the destroyer he became but then Raven says something that caused Barnes to recoil back from shock "Yes, I've seen scribes of the mark of the beast"
Barnes slams the brakes and pulls over as he turns to ask her "How the fuck do you know that?" He thought that the only people who knew his origins and what he is.
As he regains his composure, he starts pressing on the gas again, moving forward as Raven replies to his question "I guess I should explain to you... My father was an interdimensional demon named, Trigon, or his nickname, the great titan. I was conceived because my mother, being young and dumb, did a ritual called the bride of Satan and fell in love with the supermodel that came through the black smoke but only when he revealed his demonic side did, my mother decide to flee to another dimension called Azarath"
Barnes was still perplexed about how she knew his father but what she just said seemed to be a lot of yapping on who she was "So how do you know the doom slayer?"
"While I was growing up on Azarath, there were prophecies that one of the daughters of Azarath would summon a powerful, dark being that would consume the dimension but before it would kill the last citizen of Azarath, a prophecized destroyer would defeat it, bearing the exact same insignia that you wear
Raven explains the prophecy as Barnes turns his head around with what she was implying.
"So why would you summon your father, knowing he was a demonic conqueror" Barnes asks, if someone knew that their dad conquered dimensions, then why summon them unless they've lost their minds?
"Well I was born in Azarath and never knew my dad, only stories from my mom, so I accidentally used a spell that summoned him..." Raven said with shame, and remorse in her voice, as if she was about to cry but then continued to say her story, through her tears.
"Then when, everyone was killed and I was the only one left, when all of Azarath was consumed by... hell, a man wearing your armor came and defeated Trigon-" Raven struggles to bring herself to the final part of her story from the tears running down her face, not even calling Trigon as her father from the atrocities he commited against countless worlds.
"Raven, it's okay, Trigon is gone, I've hear this story but with different details on how my father defeated a demon called the great one with his bare hands" Barnes said, comforting Raven as he slid his hand on her hair, trying to calm her down.
Raven rubs away the tears "After he defeated Trigon, and because he couldn't talk, we used telepathy and he told me that he could only kill him if he had a special weapon called the crucible so instead, he locked him inside a red gem and placed it on my forehead, imbuing it with powerful magic to keep Trigon locked away but that was before he sent me to a safe realm, on this earth"
Barnes said, "The Doom Slayer, or I should say, my dad, has been dead for eighteen years, died after killing the dark lord himself, effectively sealing hell... he died before I could ever get to know him," causing more grief to Raven, who now knows the man who saved her, is dead. But as for Barnes, he never knew his father but it messes with his mind that he and Raven are similar in age but she managed to meet his father before her teens thanks only to the severe time differences caused by hell and universal travel
"Also, what was he like when you met him?" Barnes asks, wishing to know more of his father from personal accounts and not legends or tales on the fear he struck into the damned.
"He never spoke but as an empath, I could feel that he hated the demons to a fault... Through all of the guts, bullets, and anger, he was just like a man who had nothing to lose but that was only during battle when he was trying to comfort me from the loss of my home, it was like he went through the same thing but he also told me to never go down the line of vengeance" Raven said to Barnes, letting Barnes think about the last thing she said.
"Never go down the line of vengeance," Barnes muttered, repeating Raven's words to himself.